Hi All

Its high time i upgraded my system and as im a student i cant go state of the art but i can almost get close.

specs so far are AMD Athlon 64 3800+, XFX 7600GT XXX edition (PCI-X). the rest is pretty much bog standard but i do need your help on what mobo to go for. wanted an abit but frontosa has stopped bringing them into the country. so im thinking maby an ASUS or MSI, any other's i should look at?

basic requirements are. PCI-X (dont need SLI), 4x SATA II(or more), 2x ide133.
obviously it needs to be an AMD capable board but i also cant decide on NForce or VIA chipsets, i think NForce is the better but i dont know. I want a good board that is fast and reliable (i wont overclock) but doesnt cost the earth, +- R1300.00

any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Guy

recommendations?

for a stock board go MSI - K8N - SLI is a decent priced board atm

For a power board try DFI's

For a semi-decent board go Asus
Asus A8N-E ; socket 939 , athlon64/64fx , nvidia nForce4 ultra chipset , 4x dual channel ddr400 , 4 x s-ata2 with raid 0/1/0+1 , 2 x parallel ata133 , on-board ALC850 7.1 digital audio with s/pdif out + NV gigabit lan + NV firewall ; 3x pci , 2 x pci-e(1x) , 1 X pci-e (4x) , 1 x pci-e(16x) , atx


as for chipset... Nforce chipset are the best bet atm or the ati if you going the ATI route

Hi Fishfly.

Thanks for the info. going for a DFI Lanparty UT SLI-D and hopefully getting my hands on a AMD X2 3800+ for R150 more than the single core version
trying to get the E6 stepping version (ADA3800DAA5CV) even tho they say there is no performance difference between the E6 and the E4, just think the E6 might have more head room for OC'ing.

Thanks again for the help.

Cheers
Guy

hmmm I'd rather go for a opteron 165 for overclockability as you'll be able to squeeeze a lot outta that chip than the dual core counter parts